


Knife's Edge

by the_moonmoth



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-01
Updated: 2006-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:17:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He suspects it's the only thing keeping him from falling off the knife's edge."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knife's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently cozy nights in by the open fire inspire me to write... well... *flails* It took me long enough to figure out how to do this, but I've finally managed to lay to rest my oldest Atlantis bunny (at the decrepit old age of 14 months). May it rest in peace. *dances on its grave*
> 
> There is a DVD-style commentary for this story which you can read [here](http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_moonmoth/66100.html).
> 
> Beta thanks to the ever-marvelous Alyse.
> 
> For fenris_wolf0

***

'John?' Rodney asks, staring in horror, 'What are you doing?'

For a split-second John gets a wide-eyed, trapped-animal look, and then it melts away into dark anger. 'What? You think it _meant_ something? A couple of fucks and I'm under your thumb?' John strides up to him. Grabbing him by the shoulders, he leans in. 'I'm not yours,' he spits, shaking Rodney a little. 'I never was.' Above them, the ceiling is shaking with him. Around them, everything is shaking.

Rodney thinks, _he's lying._ A second later he realises that no, he isn't.

There's a booming in his ears. John's eyes never waver from his, dangerous, alight. 'Get the hell out of my world, McKay.' The words are hot; his face, eyes, the explosion.

Turning, leaving John behind, Rodney thinks, _it's like the end of the world._

~~~

'Rodney, I'll be frank,' Elizabeth says. 'I'm worried about you, and I'm not the only one.'

'You haven't been going to your sessions,' she says. 'I could make them compulsory, you know.'

She says, 'Rodney, you have to talk about what happened sometime. It's starting to affect your work.'

She sighs, slumps a little, rubs her forehead. 'Colonel Sheppard-'

' _Stop_ , Elizabeth. Just... please stop.'

***

Rodney rolls onto his side and smiles sleepily. 'Hey,' he says.

'Hey,' John replies, smiling gently back at him. It's a softening of the mouth, but mostly it's in the eyes, and Rodney realises how rarely he's seen John smile like that. Like he's truly happy. The depth of it makes Rodney's heart clench.

He reaches out and runs his fingertips down John's cheek and along his jaw, down his neck and along his bare flank. His hand looks pale against John's skin, turned golden in the dim yellow light. He spreads his fingers out on John's side, feeling his warmth, trying to absorb it.

When he looks back up, the smile has faded and John is watching him with intense dark eyes. 'Come here,' he says, pulling Rodney closer, and holds him so tightly as he kisses him and kisses him, as though he's afraid Rodney is going to disappear.

~~~

'McKay,' John says. _Sheppard_ says. The distinction seems small after everything that's happened. Ridiculously small. And yet he suspects it's the only thing keeping him from falling off the knife's edge.

'Colonel,' Rodney replies, terse, impatient. It's only half for show.

Sheppard looks him over, face neutral. 'Everything okay?'

'Yes, yes, fine,' Rodney mutters, turning back to his work. He's so definitely busy.

Sheppard doesn't say anything for what feels like a long time. When he speaks again, it startles Rodney a little. 'Okay,' is all he says, and turns to go, but a troubled expression is flickering across his face, somewhere just out of sight.

***

Rodney awakes groaning, squinting up into the sky. He's lying on his back, the gate looming large to his left. He calls. There's no answer.

He props himself up on his elbows, irritated. Obviously he's been unconscious, his head hurts like a train wreck, his team has disappeared, and (his eyes fall on the dented, battered-looking DHD) radioing for help may prove difficult.

He's just heaving himself to action when a _click_ sounds from behind. Spinning around on his knees in the dirt, he comes face to face with the shining black barrel of a pistol. Rodney closes his eyes and sighs before raising his hands.

'Just when I thought my day couldn't actually get any worse.'

Opening his eyes to glare up at his soon-to-be captor, he sees a man wearing skins and shades of brown leather, Pegasus _haute couture_. But as Rodney's eyes travel further up he meets the incongruous sight of a pair of aviator shades.

And just as Rodney's opening his mouth to say, ' _Colonel_?' the man whips the shades off and stares down at Rodney, eyes so wide the whites are shining, like he can't believe what he's seeing, like he's seen a ghost.

===

Gate travel will never not be disconcerting for Rodney: he knows how it works. Dematerialised, transmitted through subspace as information rather than life, to be reassembled impossibly far away. And yet, it's not the technology that unsettles him.

Physical exposure to subspace is eerie. There's no other way Rodney can describe it. You can't exactly think when your brain is a disjointed collection of ones and zeroes, so everything comes to you as perception: the colour of your transit, the shape of a memory, the sound of someone's face. It's dreamlike -- sometimes you don't remember what you saw until later. Sometimes you just forget straight away.

Sometimes it feels like you're never going to get out of it.

So while he has every confidence in the technology (he is the foremost expert, after all), there's always a thread of perception, weaving around the swirl of his consciousness, wherein he wonders (in spiky orange and the silently thunderous crashing of waves) what's taking so long, and shouldn't he be there by now?

But you can't count in subspace -- the physical time of normal space is meaningless there. And yet, Rodney knows when it's been too long.

Once you've been through the gate a handful of times, you begin to get a sense of the patterns of things. Rodney has privately theorised that you begin to recognise your own existentialised brainwaves. So when something goes wrong, he senses it in the unfamiliar shape of the song he'd been humming that morning, the texture of the ZPM power outputs, the colour of Colonel Sheppard.

***

'So this is interesting,' Rodney says. 'I'm pretty sure this wasn't supposed to happen.'

'Could you point that thing somewhere else?' he says, 'Like not in my face?'

He says, 'Listen, Colonel, obviously there's been some kind of mistake. If I could just take a look at the control crystals..?'

Sheppard says, ' _Major_.'

He says, 'Who are you?' and it sounds like a betrayal.

~~~

Every evening, doing his rounds, Sheppard calls into the lab to check on him. Rodney can't decide if this is more or less annoying than Elizabeth and Carson's hovering. At least they come out and say what they're thinking.

And every time he appears, something in Rodney whispers _wrong_ ; the rest of him is screaming _right!_

***

The facility is mostly subterranean, and it makes him think of the Genii, though less sophisticated. They had to abandon Atlantis, Sheppard explains. Have to hop around from world to world, trying to stay one step ahead of the Wraith. They've been here a couple of months now, and his people are getting antsy -- Rodney can feel the electric snap of anxiety in the air. But it's the most secure they've been in a long time, and Sheppard is reluctant to move them on just yet. They're so tired.

They talk some more, Rodney trying to pinpoint divergences. He has only half an eye on the people they're passing, the looks they're giving him, until he sees Peter Grodin. And then, in the manner of these things, realises several things at once.

'Elizabeth?' Rodney asks. 'Carson? _Me_?' Sheppard looks away, then back again. His mouth moves as though to speak, but he doesn't. Rodney imagines there aren't words for it.

~~~

Rodney has stepped out onto the control room balcony. He needs... he doesn't know what he needs anymore, except to get away, except to breathe. Elizabeth is right, he knows it. Knows it but can't quite bring himself to recognise it.

Leaning his forearms on the railing he lets his head fall, closes his eyes and tries to clear his mind of everything unimportant. His mind, though, seems to have other ideas about the nature of importance.

After a few minutes of staring at the turbulent sea, he hears the doors open further down the balcony. Turning his head he meets Sheppard's eyes. He's standing there, the wind pulling at his hair, cradling his P90 and looking at Rodney, just looking at him. And Rodney begins to understand (as he sees flames that aren't there licking around the Colonel's body) the existence of ghosts in another pair of those eyes.

Rodney straightens to face him. Something seems to pass between them, something Rodney can't name, but he feels the weight of it, and he wonders, _Does he know? How can he possibly... Does he know?_

***

Rodney knocks at Sheppard's door late at night, tired, grimy, but energised by his success.

'I think I know how to fix it,' he says, 'I can go back!'

Perhaps it's because he's woken Sheppard up, perhaps it's simply because he doesn't know him like he assumes he does, but suddenly everything is there on Sheppard's face in a way it's never been before.

He stares wide-eyed, whispers, 'Oh.'

'I didn't know,' he says. 'We aren't -- in my --'

Sheppard looks at Rodney, just looks at him, and it feels like a gravitational pull, like the death spiral around a black hole. _Oh look,_ he thinks faintly, _there goes the event horizon. No escape now._

He licks his lips. 'John,' he says, the word dry, uncharted, but oddly familiar in his mouth. 'I don't have to go straight away.'

~~~

Rodney has always wanted John Sheppard, for as long as he's known him. Or so it sometimes seems. Late at night, wringing his hands over his work and the Wraith and the impossibility of their situation, he has rediscovered, redefined desperation.

And isn't this just another aspect in the understanding of it? Sheppard between him and the wall, their bodies barely touching, touches faint and fleeting, as though that can excuse any of this?

Sheppard kisses him hungrily, high, frantic sounds rising in his throat. Rodney's fingers tremble as he doesn't quite hold on, doesn't quite cup Sheppard's face or run a hand up his chest, heat and breath and a world still between them.

***

'You never were one to beat around the bush,' John says after. He lies with his head resting on his fist, running the other hand slowly over Rodney's chest, shoulders, arms, stomach, tracing the planes of his body and the contours of his face.

'Tell me,' Rodney murmurs, drowsy, content, captivated.

'After the mission to Proculus,' John says, smirking slightly at Rodney's obvious distaste. 'You said it was your duty to protect me from myself.'

'I was angry,' Rodney says.

'You were jealous,' John corrects, looking smug. 'Nothing happened, but there was no telling you. You always hated it when I...' he trails off and it's startling how his eyes can change, how that changes his face. He hooks a leg over Rodney's, an arm over his chest, and lowers his head to Rodney's shoulder. 'I missed you,' he whispers.

Rodney strokes his back, staring at the ceiling.

~~~

Just as Rodney has always wanted John Sheppard, he's always known that it can't happen; knew that before the fact of his wanting him.

It can't happen, and yet it did, somewhere else, not that long ago. He wonders how that changed things for them. He wonders if, somehow, it changed everything.

And he's afraid.

It can't happen. This is still the truth. (Though not the only one).

***

 _The Wraith are coming,_ Teyla had said, returning from Geratha. _Two days out, maybe less._

'It's time for you to go,' John is saying. His voice is steady but he won't look at Rodney, won't meet his eyes. 'Do what you have to do, and then go.'

'You have to leave, too,' Rodney says. 'John, you have to leave, too,' because maybe he doesn't know him as well as he assumes, but maybe he does.

'Promise me you're going to run,' he says, turning cold somewhere deep inside.

'We're running,' John says, and he looks tired and a little sick, but Rodney believes him because he wants to.

~~~

Sheppard sits down next to Rodney on the pier, crossing his legs and resting his arms loosely on his knees. The lights from the city shine brightly behind them, but in front there is nothing but darkness and stars.

'Do you know,' he asks after a long moment, shaking his head, 'how weird it feels to be jealous of yourself?' He says, 'Frankly, Rodney, I think I have more to be worried about here. So maybe you could tell me exactly what it is you're afraid of?'

Rodney thinks about not answering, only to realise he's already talking. 'What if,' he's saying, 'what if I was distracted and that's why? What if I was too busy begging you not to fly a nuke into a hiveship to notice... to notice something important? What if I was too worried about you to think? So worried I couldn't _think_. John...' he says, pleading, but there, yes: it's already too late.

***

Rodney asks John to run, but two days later, coming to find out why no one else is heading for the gate, he finds him geared up in his old Lantean uniform and combat vest, armed to the teeth and fastening more ammunition to himself as Rodney watches in horror.

John speaks in words -- words that cut and wound and strike him in places that weren't vulnerable before. But John also speaks in other ways, and as impacts shake the room and explosions boom loud and too close, Rodney realises what he's doing.

He hates himself for the moment he silently agreed that he doesn't belong here, but it's too late now because he's already running. Running. Running, and he can't make himself stop.

At the gate, an intense flash of light washes over his back, and as he turns to see, the shockwave knocks him sprawling into the event horizon.

===

When Rodney falls through the event horizon: the grating-mellow sound of silver-green-grey eyes; the blood-red and sunrise gold of their lovemaking; the twisting, fibrous shape of the explosion; the pale blue of his understanding; the bright white of his grief.

It goes on forever; it's over too soon.

~~~

'What if,' Rodney says, 'you died?'

The words stand heavy between them, and Rodney remembers a man watching him run away, cradling a P90, hair being pulled about as the air rushed to another explosion, flames blazing blood-red and sunrise gold behind him.

***

John is heat against Rodney's back, he's sweat and breath and movement and life.

He holds Rodney tightly, legs drawn up to Rodney's, arms tight around him, pressing kisses to his neck, his shoulder, and rubbing himself with slow desperate shudders between Rodney's cheeks. Rodney reaches back to clasp John's thigh, trying to bring him closer -- they're touching everywhere they can be but it isn't enough. He's so hard he aches, and he wants to touch himself but that won't be enough, either. It can't happen but it is happening and Rodney wants it so badly he barely dares breath.

Fingers, fumbles, a huff of frustrated laughter and then a moan, long and deep. John moves slowly within him, whispering brokenly into his skin, and it's not enough, it's not enough, but it's too much, and his toes curl up, mouth opening to silence as he comes uncontrollably.

Just before he comes, John whispers, _I forgot how to breathe without you._

That's when Rodney knows he has to go home.

~~~

'What if you died?' Rodney says. 'John, I can't... I wouldn't be able to. If I lost you. I couldn't...'

But the word and the breath and the thought evaporate as John puts his mouth to Rodney's, breathes him in, gives him breath.

***

'I'm not yours,' John says. 'I never was.'

It's an odd truth, true only through a trick of the light. (In fact Rodney thinks it might be something to do with the unified effects of gravitational waves and quantum fluctuations, which he should be very excited about, but isn't).

Rodney wonders what the truth will look like when he goes home.

~~~

'Please,' Rodney breathes in between kisses, 'Don't,' and, 'Please,' and, 'John.'

'I can't lose you,' he says.

John says, 'You're an idiot,' and hooks a hand around Rodney's neck, keeping him from pulling away. 'Shut up,' he gasps, 'You're an idiot.'

Some part of Rodney is singing, another part is still resisting, but mostly he's realising that finally, finally, the touch is real.

***

'I'm not yours,' John says, and Rodney runs home.

===

On their next mission, Rodney remembers nothing from their trip through subspace except the impression of a plant, continually wilting and blooming, dried brown leaves furling out and turning green, to shrink back down and die, to unfurl again, over and over. It's like the pulsing of a heart, he thinks. Like breath in a lung.

He looks over at John and smiles ever so slightly, a feeling of relief pushing tentatively at him.

He breathes in.


End file.
